TIME FOR EARTHLINGS TO TAKE LIFESTYLES TO A GREENER LEVEL

The big picture: In honor of Earth Day, you are packing a healthy lunch in Earth-friendly paper bags for your hybrid-vehicle trip to today’s big EarthFair bash in Balboa Park. Which is all very well and good, but not necessarily good and green.

Like all virtuous life changes — losing weight, quitting smoking, breaking your unfortunate “Dance Moms” addiction — adopting an environmentally correct lifestyle is no picnic. Even if your basket is made of recycled tires and repurposed hemp. As Mother Earth prepares for her annual group hug, here is a look at some do-gooding habits that could be done better:

Makeover No. 1: Step away from the bottle

Drinking plenty of water is good for you. Recycling your many water bottles is supposed to be good for the planet. But between the energy consumed by the recycling process and the mass of lazy-people throwaways congealing in Pacific Trash Vortex, recyclable water bottles are not the key to greener, more hydrated living. That reusable bottle lurking in the back of your kitchen cabinet just might be.

“When you think about the recommended daily amount of water we are supposed to drink, that is a huge amount of waste created in one day that could be avoided,” said Erin Reynante, outreach and volunteer coordinator for San Diego Coastkeeper.

Makeover No. 2: Reboot your recycling

Thanks to curbside recycling, most environmentally aware San Diegans know where our bottles, cans and too-many phone books should go. What many people don’t know is that the city of San Diego’s recycling menu now includes rigid plastic and cartons, which means there is now room in the recycling bin for juice boxes, clamshell packaging and the occasional lawn chair.

“As long as they fit in the container, put them in there,” said city recycling specialist Martha Espinola. “It’s beautiful.”

Which is not to say trash day can’t still get ugly. The list of non-recyclables that most frequently end up in the wrong bins includes plastic bags, Styrofoam and — weirdly enough — appliances. And while investing in compact fluorescent light bulbs and rechargeable batteries is a great idea, throwing the used ones away is not. To get the recycling rundown, go to

Nothing makes the green-of-heart happier than a beach cleanup. Unless it is I Love a Clean San Diego’s annual Creek to Bay Cleanup, which reminds us that beach trash does not always start there.

“We want to work with the inland sites to catch the trash at its source before it makes it down to the beaches that we all love,” said Pauline Martinson, executive director of I Love a Clean San Diego. The cleanup is April 28. Go to

If you want to make Mother Earth smile, don’t drive to Balboa Park for EarthFair, where traffic will be a mess and parking spaces will be an endangered species by 10:30 a.m. Shuttle and alternative-transportation info is available at